Alien Effects
by hellalien
Summary: Peter's only half-Terran, but his other half has never seemed to make any sort of impact on his life. At least, not that he's noticed. But what if Peter's other, alien half lived for years, more so than most other species? Maybe Peter's other half is keeping him young, in both appearance and age. The wish for eternal life does go hand in hand with eternal youth, after all.
A/N: This is just my personal little headcanon for what Peter should be like. I mean, in human terms, he's not old, but he's not exactly young either. But for his alien half, I imagine he would be incredibly young. For example, aren't the Spartoi supposed to live for hundreds of years? I'm not sure if I'm going to make him Spartoi in my verse, but my point still stands. I feel like there would be some kind of physical manifestation of his alien half somewhere, but I don't want to ruin that whole "Looks Human/Xandarian" vibe. Thus, this was born. Half-aliens are confusing.

* * *

Terran biology was confusing. To begin with, sources documenting the way their organic matter moved and aged were hard to find and, usually, even harder to understand. No one quite knew what their stomachs could handle, or what constituted "poisonous" for them. If one got injured, the main goal was typically "don't let all of the blood on the inside move to the outside" and that about handled it. Infections were dangerous, but medications could be even more dangerous if they reacted the wrong way. The species was a nightmare to deal with.

Considering their home planet was off limits and very few Terrans roamed the galaxy to begin with, it made sense that very little knowledge could be found about them. It didn't make it any less frustrating, though.

In all of the research he had done for Terrans, though, their age had seemed almost straight-forward (at least, comparatively). On average, they seemed to live into their eighties, so long as serious injury or sickness didn't kill them before that. Around when they were teens, their features typically became less rounded, and they grew a little taller. At about eighteen, they had usually shaped themselves into what they were more or less going to stick to for the rest of their lives. Their features tended to be sharper, their proportions less awkward, gangly, and lanky, and they didn't look like children anymore. They were still young, sure, but they looked of age. The older they got, the older they looked. They got wrinkles and the like, or they were supposed to. They were supposed to be pretty similar to Xandarians.

Peter had just turned twenty-one. In Yondu's eyes, he looked like the Terran equivalent of fourteen. Hell, he looked like a Xandarian twelve.

"What the hell," Yondu muttered. "Somethin' ain't right."

Now, Yondu knew that Peter's father wasn't Terran, but he hadn't really thought about the alien DNA affecting the boy much, if at all. Sure, he seemed to have more stamina than the average Terran, and he was more agile than Yondu would've expected. He also seemed more durable than the average Terran, and that was something Yondu was thankful for; fragility made for short lifespans. However, besides peak performance levels (which could just be attributed to Peter being a better-than-average type of Terran), Peter was very much "human". There didn't seem to be anything out of the ordinary for him.

At least, it _used_ to be that nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

Peter had always been sensitive to the Ravager's sense of humor, but jokes about his height or age seemed to throw him off even more. He'd gotten better at rolling with the smart remarks and insults- he'd had to- but there was still an edge in his tone, a stiffness in his shoulders when he heard it. They passed him off as a Xandarian sixteen- they had to, no one would believe that the guy was twenty with a face like that- and they still got weird looks for it. They had claimed he was ten once, partially to piss him off and partially to see if anyone would actually believe it, and there hadn't been so much as a blink in doubt. Peter had been livid.

It was hilarious, but also weird.

Twenty was the age of a man for Terrans, and Xandarians. Yondu had expected him to look old, maybe be growing some facial hair or at least have his cheeks shape into something less round, have his proportions lengthen out, grow some more muscle instead of just being a twig, but no such luck.

Yondu had heard that some Terrans looked like kids their whole lives. Maybe that's what had happened to Quill, and Yondu just hadn't expected it. It did make going through with certain missions hard; he had planned on Quill looking like an adult for some of his plans.

On the bright side, sometimes kids had advantages, as long as they did as they were told. A lot of people had sympathy for kids. A lot of people didn't suspect kids of malicious things. Kids were useful on missions if they were smart, and even though the boy didn't act like it, Peter was _damn_ smart. They could pull off a lot of stuff with him looking as young as he did.

Maybe this was a good thing after all.

Good or bad, though, if it wasn't killing him, Yondu didn't care. He just needed the boy functioning well enough to do his job.

It did make Yondu wonder, though.

(Maybe he'd give it ten years. He had to grow out of those baby cheeks at some point.)

/-/-/-/-/

At thirty, Peter still looked young. It was better than before, when he still had round cheeks and skinny legs, but it was only a slight improvement. He had since grown a little muscle, but his body type was apparently built to be lean and lithe instead of strong. He was never assumed to be older than eighteen, if that.

Incredibly, Peter still hadn't discovered that he may not be completely human. When Yondu, out of pure curiosity, had confronted him about his ageing, he had suggested that maybe it was from the space travel. Time moved differently in space, after all, and Peter wondered if it had made him look and feel more youthful than he actually was.

Yondu had laughed. When Peter had defensively asked him about it with a winning smile and masked charm, Yondu had only said, "That must be it."

Yeah. That must be it.


End file.
